The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication (Protest and Social Movements)

Protestors across the world use aesthetics in order to communicate their ideas and ensure their voices are heard. This book looks at protest aesthetics, which we consider to be the visual and performative elements of protest, such as images, symbols, graffiti, art, as well as the choreography of protest actions in public spaces. Through the use of social media, protestors have been able to create an alternative space for people to engage with politics that is more inclusive and participatory than traditional politics. This volume focuses on the role of visual culture in a highly mediated environment and draws on case studies from Europe, Thailand, South Africa, USA, Argentina, and the Middle East in order to demonstrate how protestors use aesthetics to communicate their demands and ideas. It examines how digital media is harnessed by protestors and argues that all protest aesthetics are performative and communicative. Cover 1 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgements 10 Preface: Devisualize 12 Nicholas Mirzoeff 12 Introduction: The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication 16 Aidan McGarry, Itir Erhart, Hande Eslen-Ziya, Olu Jenzen, and Umut Korkut 16 Part I. Performance, Art and Politics 38 1. Queer Visual Activism in South Africa 40 Tessa Lewin 40 2. The Use of Visibility in Contentious Events in Northern Ireland 60 Katy Hayward and Milena Komarova 60 3. Maybe, We Will Benefit from Our Neighbour’s Good Fortune: An Exhibition on Collectivity, Community, and Dialogue in Turkey 82 Işıl Eğrikavuk 82 4. Political Street Art in Social Mobilization: A Tale of Two Protests in Argentina 100 Holly Eva Ryan 100 5. Archiving Dissent: (Im)material Trajectories of Political Street Art in Istanbul and Athens 122 Julia Tulke 122 6. The Introvert’s Protest: Handwriting the Constitution and the Performance of Politics 142 Interview with Morgan O’Hara by Aidan McGarry 142 Part II. Visual Activism and Digital Culture 150 7. Photography and Protest in Israel/Palestine: The Activestills Online Archive 152 Simon Faulkner 152 8. Drones, Cinema, and Protest in Thailand 172 Noah Viernes 172 9. Bearing Witness to Authoritarianism and Commoning through Video Activism and Political Film-making after the Gezi Protests 192 Özge Özdüzen 192 10. Music Videos as Protest Communication: The Gezi Park Protest on YouTube 212 Olu Jenzen, Itir Erhart, Hande Eslen-Ziya, Derya Güçdemir, Umut Korkut, and Aidan McGarry 212 11. The Activist Chroniclers of Occupy Gezi: Counterposing Visibility to Injustice 234 Dan Mercea and Helton Levy 234 12. When Twitter Got #woke: Black Lives Matter, DeRay McKesson, Twitter, and the Appropriation of the Aesthetics of Protest 248 Farida Vis, Simon Faulkner, Safiya Umoja Noble, and Hannah Guy 248 Part III. Conclusion 268 13 Conclusion: Reflections on Protest and Political Transformation since 1789 270 Jim Aulich 270 Index 294 List of Figures and Tables 8 Figure 0.1. Whirling Devish with gas mask, Taksim Square, 2013. Photo by Seamus Travers. 19 Figure 1.1. Sulaiga. From The Sistaaz Hood Gallery, 2016. Photo credit: Robert Hamblin. 47 Figure 1.2. Stills from the video piece InterseXion, 2016. Photo credit: Robert Hamblin. 47 Figure 1.3. FAKA, 2016. Photo credit: Nick Widmer. 51 Figure 2.1. Map of Ardoyne from Google Maps. Map data ©2019 Google. 69 Figure 2.2. The Orange parade through Ardoyne on 12 July 2012, including the marchers (A), their supporters at Twaddell/Woodvale (B), the protestors (C), the police (D) and journalists (E). Image © Katy Hayward. 71 Figure 3.1. HAH, Without Encountering, site-specific installation. 93 Figure 3.2. Dadans, Playing House, performance. 94 Figure 4.1. First Siluetazo, 20-21 September 1983. Two silhouettes on an urban wall. The two silhouettes have identifying labels but the image is blurred and the names are hard to distinguish. Photograph courtesy of Edward Shaw. 111 Figure 4.2. First Siluetazo, 20-21 September 1983. Silhouette of a baby/toddler on an urban wall. This silhouette represents a child born in captivity, Carranza-Goites, born on 19 August 1976. Photograph courtesy of Edward Shaw. 112 Figure 5.1. Memorial for Alexandros Grigoropoulos and Berkin Elvan in Athens-Exarcheia, 2015. Photography by the author. 127 Figure 5.2. Graffiti slogans on the floor of Taksim Square during the Gezi protests, 11 June 2013. Photograph by Eser Karadağ via https://flic.kr/p/eJQdsv. 129 Figure 6.1. ‘We the People’. 145 Figure 7.1. Oren Ziv, ‘Protest calling for the release of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria, Tel Aviv, Israel, 19.4.16’, 2016. Reproduced with permission of Oren Ziv/Activestills. 165 Figure 8.1. Drone Space. Self-sketch of a drone capture. 176 Figure 8.2. Throwing stones scene from The Asylum (dir. Prapat Jiwarangsan, 2015). 185 Figure 8.3. The continuity of work during a military coup, from Night Watch (dir. Danaya Chulphuthipong, 2015). 186 Figure 9.1. Özatalay’s drawing of Semih Özakça. This image became a touchstone of digitally shared posts on the hunger strike of Özakça and Gülmen. 204 Figure 10.1. A çArşı supporters’ banner in Gezi Park with the slogan ‘Taksim is ours. çArşı is ours. The street is ours’. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. 225 Figure 11.1. The time distribution of Occupy Gezi tweets for May-June 2013. 239 Figure 12.1. The arrest of the African-American celebrity-activist DeRay McKesson during a Black Lives Matter event. Source: AP Photo/Max Becherer. 250 Figure 13.1. Darko Vojinovic, Opposition Rally, Belgrade Yugoslavia, 14 April 2000. Members of Otpor (Resistance), a student organization, arrive in central Belgrade’s Republic Square during an antigovernment rally. In one of the biggest protests against 285